The Ode Less Travelled: Unlocking The Poet Within
Encyclopedia
The Ode Less Travelled: Unlocking the Poet Within is a book by author
, actor
, comedian
and director
Stephen Fry
about writing poetry
. Fry covers metre
, rhyme
, many common and arcane poetic forms, and offers poetry exercises, contrasting modern and classic poets.
Fry's starting point can be summed up by the quotation with which he heads Chapter One: 'Poetry is metrical writing./If it isn't that I don't know what it is.' (J. V. Cunningham
.) In a 'rant' near the end of the book he states: 'I think that much poetry today suffers from anaemia. There is no iron in its blood, no energy, no drive.'
Fry sets out to explain the many tools available to a poet in order to organise writing, noting poetry's essential metrical basis and introducing the many technical terms, with explanations and exercises. The book offers twenty 'Poetry Exercises', with one or two in each chapter.
The first main section, 'Metre', has six chapters, introducing the natural rhythm of spoken English and many forms of metre. In fact, 28 are listed in the 'Table of Metric Feet' which concludes this major section of the book. The next section, 'Rhyme' has three chapters, explaining the 'basic categories', 'rhyming arrangements' and discussing what is good or bad rhyme. Eleven chapters follow on 'Form', starting with a chapter on 'The Stanza. What is Form and Why Bother with It?' Closed and open forms, heroic verse, forms of ode, ballads, comic verse, sonnets, shaped verse; these and several more are explained along with examples. The book's final section is entitled 'Diction and Poetics Today'. There is also a 600 (approx) word 'Incomplete Glossary of Poetic Terms'.
Author
An author is broadly defined as "the person who originates or gives existence to anything" and that authorship determines responsibility for what is created. Narrowly defined, an author is the originator of any written work.-Legal significance:...
, actor
Actor
An actor is a person who acts in a dramatic production and who works in film, television, theatre, or radio in that capacity...
, comedian
Comedian
A comedian or comic is a person who seeks to entertain an audience, primarily by making them laugh. This might be through jokes or amusing situations, or acting a fool, as in slapstick, or employing prop comedy...
and director
Film director
A film director is a person who directs the actors and film crew in filmmaking. They control a film's artistic and dramatic nathan roach, while guiding the technical crew and actors.-Responsibilities:...
Stephen Fry
Stephen Fry
Stephen John Fry is an English actor, screenwriter, author, playwright, journalist, poet, comedian, television presenter and film director, and a director of Norwich City Football Club. He first came to attention in the 1981 Cambridge Footlights Revue presentation "The Cellar Tapes", which also...
about writing poetry
Poetry
Poetry is a form of literary art in which language is used for its aesthetic and evocative qualities in addition to, or in lieu of, its apparent meaning...
. Fry covers metre
Meter (poetry)
In poetry, metre is the basic rhythmic structure of a verse or lines in verse. Many traditional verse forms prescribe a specific verse metre, or a certain set of metres alternating in a particular order. The study of metres and forms of versification is known as prosody...
, rhyme
Rhyme
A rhyme is a repetition of similar sounds in two or more words and is most often used in poetry and songs. The word "rhyme" may also refer to a short poem, such as a rhyming couplet or other brief rhyming poem such as nursery rhymes.-Etymology:...
, many common and arcane poetic forms, and offers poetry exercises, contrasting modern and classic poets.
Fry's starting point can be summed up by the quotation with which he heads Chapter One: 'Poetry is metrical writing./If it isn't that I don't know what it is.' (J. V. Cunningham
J. V. Cunningham
James Vincent Cunningham was an American poet, literary critic, and teacher. Sometimes described as a neo-classicist or anti-modernist, his poetry was distinguished by its clarity, its brevity, and its traditional formality of rhyme and rhythm at a time when many American poets were breaking away...
.) In a 'rant' near the end of the book he states: 'I think that much poetry today suffers from anaemia. There is no iron in its blood, no energy, no drive.'
Fry sets out to explain the many tools available to a poet in order to organise writing, noting poetry's essential metrical basis and introducing the many technical terms, with explanations and exercises. The book offers twenty 'Poetry Exercises', with one or two in each chapter.
The first main section, 'Metre', has six chapters, introducing the natural rhythm of spoken English and many forms of metre. In fact, 28 are listed in the 'Table of Metric Feet' which concludes this major section of the book. The next section, 'Rhyme' has three chapters, explaining the 'basic categories', 'rhyming arrangements' and discussing what is good or bad rhyme. Eleven chapters follow on 'Form', starting with a chapter on 'The Stanza. What is Form and Why Bother with It?' Closed and open forms, heroic verse, forms of ode, ballads, comic verse, sonnets, shaped verse; these and several more are explained along with examples. The book's final section is entitled 'Diction and Poetics Today'. There is also a 600 (approx) word 'Incomplete Glossary of Poetic Terms'.
Launch dates
- UK: 20 October 2005. Hutchinson.
- USA: 22 November 2005
- UK: 2007. Arrow Books, London. (Paperback) ISBN 978-0-09-950934-9